Google for Nonprofits Blog: Five Steps To Optimizing Mobile-Only Campaigns

For Nonprofits Blog

You're changing the world. We want to help.

Five Steps To Optimizing Mobile-Only Campaigns

Thursday, August 2, 2012

These days, it seems like people are always on their mobile phones - shopping, waiting in line, even when hanging out “live” with other people.

Mobile users aren’t only texting, but are searching for the latest cat video, emailing old friends, blogging their latest meals and more. Mobile has become an indispensable part of our daily lives and mobile search is also on the rise.

So what does this mean for nonprofits trying to grab people’s attention? Creating a mobile website and mobile targeted AdWords Search campaigns are a great way to get noticed in today’s mobile world. Here are five of our best practices to get you started:

1. Create a mobile site: Mobile sites are designed to fit on a small screen and help users reach information quickly and easily on their phones. Remember to make content easy to read and keep navigation simple and thumb friendly. Through GoMo, a Google initiave that provides tools and resources to make mobile sites, you can create your own site in minutes.

2. Create mobile-friendly ad text: Use call-to-actions in your AdWords ad text that target people searching on their phones. Phrases like “Donate On Your Phone” or “Call Us Now To Volunteer” show users what to do next on their mobile device.

3. Link ads to your mobile site: Make sure that your mobile ads lead users to your new mobile site. If you created your mobile site with GoMo, you’ll need to add a mobile redirect, a script that can tell when a user is on a mobile phone and then takes them to your mobile site, to your existing site.

4. Optimize your keywords: Users behave differently on their mobile devices, so keywords often perform differently too. Start your mobile-only campaign by adding your existing keywords. After three to four weeks, look at your clickthrough rate (CTR) and conversion rate (if applicable). If a keyword has a low CTR or zero conversions, consider pausing the keyword or experimenting with new ad text.

Keep an eye on your See Search Terms Report and/or Google Analytics data to see what mobile users are searching for that leads them to your site. These will help you find new keyword combinations and abbreviations you may have been unaware of.

5. Add mobile sitelinks: You can help users navigate through your site and find additional material by adding sitelinks to your mobile ads. Providing links to volunteer applications and blogs will give website visitors a better understanding of your site and allow them to reach that content quickly. Recent studies show that campaigns with mobile sitelinks experience a 30% higher clickthrough rate than those without sitelinks.

Using these five steps, you’ll be a master of mobile in no time. After all, by 2013, more people will use their mobile phones than PCs to get on the Internet (Gartner, 2010), so let’s get ready!

For more mobile resources, check out the Google Mobile Ads Blog and GoMo by Google.

Posted by Katie Kellogg, AdWords Team